Samantha Daniels Napaltjarri / Seven Sisters Dreaming (SD278)

Samantha was born in 1982 and lives at the Docker River Community. Her Language group is Luritja and she takes an active part as a social worker and office duties for her community as she has a University Degree. She is a granddaughter to the highly acclaimed artist Linda Syddick and often paints alongside Linda and her mother Ruby Nangala Daniels. Samantha has been painting since 2005 and is proud to promote her culture through her artwork.

She has had sell out exhibitions with Maruku Art Centre at Yulara at Ayers Rock, Northern Territory and has also successfully sold her artworks through many high end galleries within Australia. Her talent is obvious and she is destined to becoming a major artist whose artwork will be sought after by collectors worldwide.

In the Dreamtime a group of seven Napaltjarri women were being pursued by a Jakamarra man called Jilbi. He had been sitting in a cave at irlkirdi practicing love magic by cutting off his long hair and weaving it by hand onto a wooden spindle, then performing songs and dances which people from far off could hear.

Often he would entice young women to come to his cave and live with him. Jakamarra men were very proud of their successes when they practiced this magic, and spent much time boasting among themselves about their prowess. The seven women had no intention of sleeping with the Jakamarra man and ran away from him, journeying a long way across the desert until they were too tired and hungry to go any further. They sat down at Uluru to search for honey ants, then when they saw Jilbi approaching went to a place called Kurlunyalimpa, and changed themselves into seven fires. With the help of spirits at Uluru they went up into the sky to become stars. Ever since then they can be seen as a cluster of seven stars in the constellation Taurus, known as the Pleiades. Jilbi transformed himself into the Morning Star in Orion's belt, and continues to chase the Pleiades across the sky.

In this artwork Samantha has depicted both Jilbi and the seven sisters.